Trump Is a Minor Problem Compared to the Fact We’re Destroying Our Children

Genie and I have five grandchildren. Our oldest grandchildren—Amanda (22) and Ben (20)—are our daughter Jessica’s children. They live in Europe. Our youngest three grandchildren live across the street in the small Massachusetts town where we’ve lived in the same house for the last 36 years. They belong to our youngest child, our son John. Our oldest grandchildren are the ages of most of our friend’s children. That’s because I got Genie pregnant when we were seventeen and eighteen. “I’ll pull out,” I lied to the gorgeous San Francisco hippie princess who’d miraculously stumbled into my life. By chance, she stopped by the most unlikely setting for our first meeting: the religious fundamentalist commune run by my evangelical American parents in (of all places) Switzerland.

Our eldest, daughter Jessica, had Amanda and Ben fairly young (by today’s standards) after she left New York University. Then Jessica moved to Finland with her Finish-American composer/pianist husband Dani. As I write these words in May of 2016, Ben is here for a visit. I hear hammering as he pulls up the old decking in front of our kitchen. We’re replacing the rotten boards. It’s tough to write knowing he’s out there. I hate missing even a minute of working together side by side.

By now Genie’s and my distinction between what seriously matters most and everything else has been rendered in sharply focused detail. After our son went to war, the preciousness of time with our family became painfully clear. Following three wartime deployments and an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps in 2004, John went to the University of Chicago, married Becky halfway through school, graduated with a degree in modern European history, and moved back in with Genie and me until they got on their feet. Fortunately, we could accommodate them. Then Lucy was born.

Lucy lived in our house until she was two years old. Then she moved across the street. To say that Lucy and I bonded is an understatement. By the time Lucy arrived I had dispensed with enough of the striving-for-success clutter in my life to really see the child in my arms. I was no longer distracted, like people at a Hollywood party who are always looking past whomever they’re talking to, for someone more important in the room that they should connect with. I gave this person my wholehearted attention. When Lucy’s little brother Jack was born the happy pattern of daily involvement with our youngest grandchildren was set. A year or two later Nora joined our tribe and turned it into the joyous exhausting riotous throng I live in the midst of today.

Instead of the overwhelming fear we’d suffered from contemplating the possible loss of our son John while he was embroiled in a misbegotten war, Genie and I were offered another chance at life. Since we are both self-employed (rather “self-unemployed” as we call it when our finances get shaky between projects) we were able to rearrange our lives to accommodate being our youngest grandchildren’s daytime caregivers while John and Becky work. Certain things became non-negotiable, like watching Lucy’s newborn face as she slept in my arms. I walked in circles around the kitchen table while holding her. I’d miss “important” meetings and leave “crucial” calls unreturned and instead play music as she slept. This lulled Lucy into a trancelike state where her breathing would slow and her body relax. My arms ached from holding her in one position for so long. As she grew, I discovered you can get tennis elbow by holding a sleeping toddler in one position across your chest, her head cupped in one hand, for an hour at a time, day after day. But I was exultant when my daughter-in-law Becky called me her hero, simply because Lucy slept in my arms after she refused naps in her crib.

Besides this ego-boosting appreciation from a young mother (always a good thing), my reward for enduring these stress-position torture naps was beyond price. Lucy’s translucent, delicately mauve-tinted eyelids would flutter in her sleep, and I was there to see this gorgeousness! I knew she could hear my heartbeat! I’ve never cried for joy over a good review of a novel of mine, or when I’ve been invited to be interviewed by Oprah or by Terri Gross and sales of some of my books have (blessedly!) spiked, let alone over a royalty check. But the sheer beauty of my undistracted closeness to this lovely child, side-by-side with me in our very own gene pool, made me tear up out of sheer gratitude.

Amen Frank .. for each and every word ! The wife and I are no-nesters ( by choice ) but with us having taught at the higher ed level I can relate to each and every word . How ever long our future may be .. children are the future .

And yes .. Trump is but one result of years of addiction to entertainment ( now FaceBooking and Twittering ) having become addled by celebrity ( re: Neil Postman’s excellent book on the subject ” Amusing Ourselves to Death ” from ….1985 … ) but also our proclivity towards Victimhood ( both on the Left and the Right .. especially the White Right ) as predicted by Robert Hughes book ” The Culture of Complaint ” 1993 as well as Trump having become the predicted results of essay ” The Tyranny of the Masses ” as laid out in de Tocqueville’s ” Democracy in America ”

So what is the answer ? In this lifetime regardless of one’s beliefs .. there is none . Only temporary cures and bandages to be laid on the wounds to the best of our abilities till the only One capable of healing returns

But what definitely is not the answer is to reinvigorate and create a culture of hatred , anger , bigotry and racism fueled by a deepening xenophobia… nor for any religion or faith to presume that a theocracy is within their deluded grasp

Finally regardless of what may be lost .. do consider putting the book into print for those of us like myself that do no online financial transactions as well as preferring analogue pages in hand over any form of Pad / iBook / digital reader

As for the survey at the bottom of the site’s page asking how we’d rate Melania so far .Seriously .. how does one rate an Eastern European gold digging mail order bride , more facelifts than brains whore ?

I wish you could see me, Frank, sitting alone in a corner of Starbucks reading “Letter To Lucy” on my iPhone, sipping my Skinny Mocha, and listening to beautiful music before I have to leave this respite and start my work day.

This weekend, I will share your book with our grandchildren like you suggested when last we spoke.

Thank you for the four years of early mornings on your part that produced this joy! 😎

Frank, thank you again. You do share BEAUTY with your intriguing & ease of writing. I get lost & engrossed in your narratives, regardless of the subject. I’m just a bit older than you, being reared in a similar family of religious calamity. My parents read your father’s books, but they got fanatical, overreaching in their faith, which resulted in some bigotry & hypocrisy. Of course they were strong Republican supporters & I resisted, even back then. I was so confused with religious bull-manure. When I matured, then married, I voted like my husband, who also was Republican. BUT I got a little wiser, realizing that democracy was tainted by the religious-right. I’m now 70 years old, educated enough that I returned to college. To my surprise I found that I was meant to pursue a life of helping others through behavior science advancement. Along the way, I discovered you & your writings. What a joy you are. I delight in your blogs because you speak TRUTH. Thanks again for your knowledge & for sharing your wisdom with the rest of us like-minded individuals.

The “wall of separation” is not in the Constitution. Do you think Jefferson meant that religious beliefs should have no bearing on the laws? If that were true, there would be no laws because all laws are based on someone’s beliefs.

I have never seen an evangelical who wants different laws for different people in the US.

The Separation of Church and State is at the very crux of the Declaration of Independence then guaranteed by the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights and upheld by every Supreme Court be it liberal or conservative since the inception of the Supreme Court .

Seriously … other than your Twitter/Facebook feeds and that propaganda you feed on who’s source you refuse to reveal . .. do you read anything ? Cause in all honesty little man .. you sure as hell haven’t read the Bible , Constitution , Bill of Rights , History or much of anything else

As for issues Bryson ? At the very core of your being you are a plethora of issues covering at least twenty volumes or more all of which by your own volition … are beyond help of any kind

interesting, someone’s beliefs (i will take as meaning ethics in this context) are not the same as religion. Basis for ethical thought in the west came from greek philosophy which informed our laws. Plato’s idea of a supreme being was very different to the current personal deity most westerners prescribe to today. I will argue that it is vital that ethics transcend any person’s religious views as religion seems to be the most divisive and violent system of thought that humans have.

Try the Bible … History ( both church / religious and secular ) .. or to keep it short … reality

Fundamentalists of any stripe … emphasis on ‘ mental ‘ are not fit to be your local dog catcher .. never mind leaders of towns/cities /states countries

And ahhh … for your edification …. the minute any so called Christian tries to mandate their belief system over the entire population of the US … at that point they are in utter contradiction to both the US Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as everything this country stands for . Because my little sycophant … this is and has been a Secular State since its inception .. and sorry to shatter your delusions … but the overwhelming majority of the Founding Fathers that created the foundations of this nation … were Deists … not Christians .

The Bible predicts that near the end of time things and people will get worse. Like it was just before God sent The Flood. That has happened and you think it is a good thing. As do all who hate God. The real Bible, not Jefferson’s, tells what is going to happen. And it isn’t good news for you and Frank.

Once again my little hypocrite you dare to pass judgment on another’s state of salvation contradicting the very words of the Savior you pretend to bow down before . Namely … ” Judge not lest ye be judged yourself ” … or .. ” He who is without sin cast the first stone ”

Ahhh …. funny thing Bryson .. todays Alt Right and Tea Party Republicans worship their misguided version of Democracy . Theirs being the kind where only what they want matters and to hell with the rest of the population